Archive for the ‘Scoundrel’ Category

Cardinal Hoyos is a rabbi in cardinal’s clothing. Why do I say this? Because he attempts to hang his talmudic casuistry from St. Paul, according to which it’s virtuous for a bishop to shield an admitted sex predator priest from the punishment he deserves. The real basis for his pharisaic anti-morality is the Talmud of Babylon:

Israel is not to be accused of pederasty. (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 82a)

(Reuters) – A Vatican cardinal in charge of clergy around the world congratulated a French bishop in a 2001 letter for not denouncing a sexually abusive priest to the police, according to a French website on Thursday.

The letter posted by Golias, a critical lay Roman Catholic magazine based in Lyon, is the most explicit of a wave of recently published internal church documents in showing past Vatican encouragement to cover up sexual abuse by priests.

In the letter dated Sept 8, 2001, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos backed French Bishop Pierre Pican’s decision not to denounce a priest who was later sentenced to 18 years in jail for repeated rape of a boy and sexual assaults on 10 others.

Under fire in recent weeks for its secretive handling of abuse cases, the Vatican has insisted the fact that other published documents did not explicitly instruct bishops to inform police of abuse did not prove it told them to hide it.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi did not dispute the letter’s content but said it confirmed “how opportune it was to centralize treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics under the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, instructed Catholic bishops around the world on May 18, 2001 to report all case of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the Congregation, the top Vatican doctrinal office that he headed.

Pican, who received a suspended three-month jail sentence for not denouncing sexual abuse of minors, admitted in court he had kept Rev. Rene Bissey in parish work despite the fact the priest had privately admitted committing pedophile acts.

The case shocked France and prompted its bishops to declare that all abuse cases must be reported to civil authorities.

“I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration,” Castrillon Hoyos said. “You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest.”

BISHOPS NOT REQUIRED TO INFORM POLICE

In it, the cardinal said relations between bishops and priests were not simply professional but had “very special links of spiritual paternity.” Bishops therefore had no obligation to testify against “a direct relative,” he stated.

The letter cited Vatican documents and an epistle of Saint Paul to bolster its argument about special bishop-priest links.

“To encourage brothers in the episcopate in this delicate domain, this Congregation will send copies of this letter to all bishops’ conferences,” Castrillon Hoyos wrote.

A staunch conservative from Colombia, the cardinal headed the Vatican department for priests from 1996 to 2006. From 2000 to 2009, he also ran a commission dealing with traditionalist rebels who broke from Rome in 1988 and were excommunicated.

He conducted the talks that led to the January 2009 decision to readmit the four banned bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X to the Church, which caused an uproar when it emerged that one of them, Richard Williamson, had denied the Holocaust.

The controversy was highly embarrassing to Pope Benedict, who said he did not know about Williamson’s views, even though they could easily be found on the internet.

Two months after the incident, Benedict folded Castrillon Hoyos’s commission into the Congregation and the cardinal retired.

On Thursday the pope said the church had to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference to the pedophilia scandal.

NAZARETH, Israel (AFP) — The din of earthmovers and a cloud of dust rise over Mount Precipice as workers scramble to get ready for a papal visit that Israel hopes will bring in tourist dollars and rave reviews.

The Jewish state is pumping some 10 million dollars (7.5 million euros) into preparations for Pope Benedict XVI’s May 11-15 visit to the Holy Land that will bring tens of thousands of pilgrims to Israel.

It also hopes the papal trip will help polish Israel’s international image in the wake of the Gaza war …

“We are working under a lot of pressure to finish it in time,” says Ishai Soker of the non-profit Jewish National Fund, owned by the World Zionist Organisation, which is financing the project together with local and national authorities …

“Many people, including among the clergy, were not pleased with the visit coming at this time,” says Odeh, referring to calls for Benedict to shun Israel to protest the war on the Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians …

NAZARETH, Israel (AFP) — The din of earthmovers and a cloud of dust rise over Mount Precipice as workers scramble to get ready for a papal visit that Israel hopes will bring in tourist dollars and rave reviews.

The Jewish state is pumping some 10 million dollars (7.5 million euros) into preparations for Pope Benedict XVI’s May 11-15 visit to the Holy Land that will bring tens of thousands of pilgrims to Israel.

It also hopes the papal trip will help polish Israel’s international image in the wake of the Gaza war …

“We are working under a lot of pressure to finish it in time,” says Ishai Soker of the non-profit Jewish National Fund, owned by the World Zionist Organisation, which is financing the project together with local and national authorities …

“Many people, including among the clergy, were not pleased with the visit coming at this time,” says Odeh, referring to calls for Benedict to shun Israel to protest the war on the Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians …

EDITOR’S NOTE: Eugene Fisher’s role in the revision of Catholic teaching material and methods used in Catholic schools and seminaries to conformity with B’nai B’rith standards could not be overstated. His work was implemented with full support from the Vatican and the USCCB.

Bishops’ Catholic-Jewish expert of past 30 years prepares to retire

By Jerry FilteauCatholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Eugene J. Fisher said he currently has five books in the works and also hopes to do some teaching when he retires at the end of June after 30 years as associate director for Catholic-Jewish relations in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs …

On his first trip to Rome after he was named the bishops’ director of Catholic-Jewish relations in 1977, he said, a top Vatican Christian unity official “took me aside and said, ‘Gene, you have to move forward in the American dialogue. You are paving the way for us.'” …

Cardinal Keeler, U.S. episcopal moderator of Catholic-Jewish relations since 1988, said Fisher’s work has not been limited to the United States. On the international scene “Gene has had a key role, and his work on the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee has been crucial,” the cardinal said.

He added that Fisher is one of the people he turns to “when some difficulty arises.”

Fisher has received a couple of honorary doctorates and numerous awards from Jewish groups for his work. Twice two professors from Hebrew University in Jerusalem nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

He has attended meetings of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee since 1978 and has been a Vatican-appointed member since 1980, when he also was named a consultor to the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews.

He earned his doctorate in Hebrew culture and education from New York University in 1976, writing his thesis on the treatment of Jews and Judaism in Catholic textbooks — a field in which he says he has seen tremendous progress over the years. His critiques of the treatment of Judaism in Catholic educational materials have been used as a resource in revamping catechetical texts in many countries.

“The church has two delivery systems” for its teaching, he said. “One is the classroom, one is the liturgy and the pulpit.” In both areas Catholics now receive an entirely different message about Jews and Judaism than they did for nearly 2,000 years before Vatican II, he said.

The list of books and monographs Fisher has written or edited, many in collaboration with Jewish scholars, already runs two full pages single-spaced.

He said the five more he is currently working on are his memoirs; a collection of Cardinal Keeler’s writings on Jewish-Christian relations; a third and final edition of Pope John Paul’s texts on Jews and Judaism; a third edition of “Seminary Education and Christian-Jewish Relations,” last published in 1988; and a collection, with commentary, of papal, Vatican and USCCB texts on Jews and Judaism since the council.

Eugene Fisher earned his doctorate at New York University in Hebrew Culture and Education, 1976. His doctoral thesis was: “The Treatment of Jews and Judaism in Current Roman Catholic Teaching”. Until 1977, Dr. Fisher was Director of Catechist Formation for the Archdiocese of Detroit, as well as adjunct professor of Sacred Scripture at St. John’s Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan, and for the Religious Studies department of the University of Detroit. Dr. Fisher was appointed to his present post as Executive Secretary of the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) in May of 1977. He succeeded Father Edward H. Flannery, who had held the post since its establishment in 1968 as part of the NCCB Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. In 1981 he was named Consultor to the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews. He is one of nine Consultors to the Vatican Commission worldwide and one of two Americans. He is also a member of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee representing the Holy See. He has lectured widely throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. In 1995, a book he co-edited with Rabbi Leon Klenicki, John Paul II, Spiritual Pilgrimage: Texts on Jews and Judaism (Crossroad) won the National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish-Christian Relations category. He has published some 20 books and over 250 articles in the field of Jewish-Christian relations.